Martial Law is a crime action movie from 1990 directed by Steve Cohen and starring Chad McQueen, Cynthia Rothrock and David Carradine. It was a Image Organization production and was shot back-to-back with its sequel Martial Law II: Undercover from 1991.
Sean Thompson (McQueen) and Billie Blake (Rothrock) are two police officers and martial artists who use their fist to stop crime. They must investigate a cartel boss, played by David Carradine, who is also skilled in hand-to-hand combat.
After all these years, my big issue with the movie still stands: it's incredibly stale. It's not that the film is horribly made or conceptualized, but its cliches and tiresome tropes are a recipe for boredom. There's nothing particularly clever, inventive or lively about it that could potentially make it fun. It lacks the dynamism present in the usual Hong Kong martial arts efforts and its main storyline is far from interesting or engaging, which means that a lot of the time the film drags.
Cynthia Rothrock is typically adept at fight choreographies and brings some needed entertainment into the thing, but she isn't given much to do and her screen time/plot relevance is reduced to the bare minimum that's necessary for her to appear on the poster. Carradine also brings enough entertainment value to make his scenes worthwhile.
To the film's credit, there's nothing about it that's incompetent, it's just ordinary in its execution and construction. However, there are some standout moments like the brawls and the director manages to include some nice shots here and there but much of the film follows pedestrian detective procedure and lots of exposition scenes.
It's only recommended for action movie buffs but you probably already saw it if you are one. Not a favorite but skip to the Rothrock sequences for some nice fights.
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